The Drawing of the Three

Roland looked at her from his haunted feverish eyes. 'A lot of people have thought that, Detta.' He looked at Eddie. 'You ready?'

'Yeah, I guess so. Are you?'

'Yes.'

'Can you?'

'Yes.'

They went on.

Around ten o'clock Detta began rubbing her temples with her fingers.

'Stop,' she said. 'I feel sick. Feel like I goan throw up.'

'Probably that big meal you ate last night,' Eddie said, and went on pushing. 'You should have skipped dessert. I told you that chocolate layer cake was heavy.'

'I goan throw up! I—'

'Stop, Eddie!' the gunslinger said.

Eddie stopped.

The woman in the chair suddenly twisted galvanically, as if an electric shock had run through her. Her eyes popped wide open, glaring at nothing.

'IBROKE YO PLATE YOU STINKIN OLE BLUE LADY!' she screamed. 'IBROKE IT AND I'M FUCKIN GLAD ID?'

She suddenly slumped forward in her chair. If not for the ropes, she would have fallen out of it.

Christ, she's dead, she's had a stroke and she's dead, Eddie thought. He started around the chair, remembered how sly and tricksy she could be, and stopped as suddenly as he had started. He looked at Roland. Roland looked back at him evenly, his eyes giving away not a thing.

Then she moaned. Her eyes opened.

Her eyes.

Odetta's eyes.

'Dear God, I've fainted again, haven't I?' she said. 'I'm sorry you had to tie me in. My stupid legs! I think I could sit up a little if you—'

That was when Roland's own legs slowly came unhinged and he swooned some thirty miles south of the place where the Western Sea 's beach came to an end.

RE-SHUFFLE

1

To Eddie Dean, he and the Lady no longer seemed to be trudging or even walking up what remained of the beach. They seemed to be flying.

Odetta Holmes still neither liked nor trusted Roland; that was clear. But she recognized how desperate his condition had become, and responded to that. Now, instead of pushing a dead clump of steel and rubber to which a human body just happened to be attached, Eddie felt almost as if he were pushing a glider.

Go with her. Before, I was watching out for you and that was important. Now I'll only slow you down.

He came to realize how right the gunslinger was almost at once. Eddie pushed the chair; Odetta pumped it.

One of the gunslinger's revolvers was stuck in the waistband of Eddie's pants.

Do you remember when I told you to be on your guard and you weren't?

Yes.

I'm telling you again: Be on your guard. Every moment. If her other comes back, don't wait even a second. Brain her.

What if I kill her?

Then it's the end. But if she kills you, that's the end, too. And if she comes back she'll try. She'll try.

Eddie hadn't wanted to leave him. It wasn't just that cat-scream in the night (although he kept thinking about it); it was simply that Roland had become his only touchstone in this world. He and Odetta didn't belong here.

Still, he realized that the gunslinger had been right.

'Do you want to rest?' he asked Odetta. 'There's more food. A little.'

'Not yet,' she answered, although her voice sounded tired. 'Soon.'

'All right, but at least stop pumping. You're weak. Your … your stomach, you know.'

'All right.' She turned, her face gleaming with sweat, and favored him with a smile that both weakened and strengthened him. He could have died for such a smile … and thought he would, if circumstances demanded.

He hoped to Christ circumstances wouldn't, but it surely wasn't out of the question. Time had become something so crucial it screamed.

She put her hands in her lap and he went on pushing. The tracks the chair left behind were now dimmer; the beach had become steadily firmer, but it was also littered with rubble that could cause an accident. You wouldn't have to help one happen at the speed they were going. A really bad accident might hurt Odetta and that would be bad; such an accident could also wreck the chair, and that would be bad for them and probably worse for the gunslinger, who would almost surely die alone. And if Roland died, they would be trapped in this world forever.

With Roland too sick and weak to walk, Eddie had been forced to face one simple fact: there were three people here, and two of them were cripples.

So what hope, what chance was there?

The chair.

The chair was the hope, the whole hope, and nothing but the hope.

So help them God.